When Springfield's hunger for more revenue permits the whim of a bureaucrat to replace written law.

by John F. Di Leo

Roman life in the 5th century B.C. was pretty good, relatively speaking.  Roman society had freed itself from the tyranny of Etruscan kings; the people had representation in the Council of the Plebs, and the nation was at peace.  And a merchant class was rising from the fields; no longer was the society entirely made up of farmers, soldiers, and rulers.  For probably the first time in history, there was a small but growing presence of what we would today call a middle class.

One major sticking point remained, however: the Law was entirely in the hands of the patrician class.  The Senate had the ultimate power to decide what was the Law at any point in time, and it might well change from day to day, from morning to afternoon, from case to case.

Can this merchant sell his wares on this intersection?  May that merchant sell by the bushel or by weight or by hand count?  How are the taxes to be collected on this business, or that one, or on his, across the street?

The merchant would go before a judge with his interpretation and hope; the judge had all the power in the world.  Without a written law to rely upon, the merchant, once noticed by Rome's enforcers, was entirely at the mercy of the judge.

So the Council of the Plebs petitioned for a written law; their Tribunes demanded it.  For decades, the commoners of Rome insisted that a written law was critical, and finally, the Senate relented.  They appointed a commission (to facilitate further delay, no doubt), and by 450 B.C., with the erection of the ivory Twelve Tables (or maybe bronze; the sources of antiquity disagree), the Senate and People of Rome finally had a written legal code.

With public knowledge of the law, commerce can thrive and citizens can prosper.  As long as the law remains in place -- read, understood, and evenly enforced -- the private sector can plan for the future and be successful.

But only as long as the law is stable, and is evenly enforced.  It all falls apart if different enforcers apply different interpretations.

The state of Illinois is taking dangerous steps down that path.  The state's tax collectors began rumbling a few years ago that certain nonprofit hospitals don't provide "enough" charity care, so they are in danger of losing their tax-exempt status.

Springfield began, publicly, with a vague warning that some twenty hospitals would be reviewed, and the first three decisions were announced in August 2011.  The first three on the list were declared to be insufficiently charitable, and therefore to be liable for property tax assessment.

This is of course a very big deal, as hospitals are very big entities indeed.  They tend to sit on huge tracts of land, with parking lots and driveways and buildings and outbuildings.  The difference between paying property taxes and being property tax-exempt is huge.

But Illinois government is greedy for revenue.  In a year when much of the American public has renounced liberalism and elected Republican legislatures and governors -- and state capitals all around are tightening their belts and trying to cut taxes to invite business in -- Illinois reelected its Republican-proof Democrat majorities and socialist governor, who jointly engineered a 67% tax rate increase in January.  The crackdown on hospitals looks to be part of this effort to wring more blood from every stone in the state.

The state says these hospitals don't provide "enough" charity care, without defining how much is "enough."  For example, Provena Covenant in Urbana had provided charity care to just 302 patients in 2002, by the state's definition.  But Provena demonstrated that it had provided $38 million in free care and other community benefits, which state courts said last year wasn't "enough."  Northwestern Memorial says that its Prentice Women's Hospital donated some $276.7 million in 2010, of which $44 million was for charity care. And Edward Hospital contributed $77 million in charity care the same year.  But as percentages of revenue, the state of Illinois says that's not enough -- without ever defining how much would be.

In terms of charitable giving, hospitals must be viewed differently from other businesses.  We have a free market in retail clothing shops, in fast food franchises, in computer stores.  Not so in health care, where providers often must accept every patient regardless of ability to pay, where providers must accept punitively underpriced compensation for Medicare and Medicaid coverage with the prayer that they can make it up with paying customers, and where the burden of uncollectable debts trumps most other industries due to untraceable illegal immigrants and other miscreants without funds.

Already convoluted federal and state policies -- such as rampant frivolous malpractice litigiousness, the falling dollar, health care nationalization, FDA braking of pharmaceutical progress, and unchecked immigration -- are combining to hobble the health care industry.  Already doctors, clinics, and hospitals are suffering from a business model being rendered more difficult by the day.  They don't need an Illinois property tax fight on top of all that.

Illinois tax functionaries haughtily remind us that property taxes are necessary for not only the state, but the cities and counties as well -- that property taxes fund the public schools, the public roads, the police and fire commissions. 

But do they forget that hospitals too are necessary?  That hospitals provide jobs to their own employees and to supporting businesses as well, jobs that generate income taxes, payroll taxes, and local commerce?  That hospitals purchase food, clothing, machinery, and drugs -- purchases that generate sales taxes and keep suppliers in business too?  That hospital employees pay property taxes on their homes, either directly as homeowners or indirectly as renters?  That hospitals provide some of the best construction opportunities for a tortured building industry as they expand with necessary and complex new wings?  Does the state forget that if they drive the hospitals out of business in an effort to confiscate a few hundred thousand more dollars in property taxes, they'll lose all those millions that the hospitals had enabled all these years? 

In a ghastly recession with nearly double-digit acknowledged unemployment (worse still, in fact, in many of the communities where these targeted hospitals are located), do they really want to run the risk of putting many of these communities' largest employers out of business?

None of this appears to be a concern to the zero-sum mindset of the Illinois Department of Revenue.  They have invented a new standard -- that sufficient charitable donations are defined only by what the assessors feel is appropriate, without any clear targets or publicly available guidelines whatsoever.
In short, the Illinois Department of Revenue has made a conscious decision to join the federal onslaught on the health care industry by making that industry subject to the whim of a bureaucrat instead of the clear language of the written law.

For a century or more, Americans have asked the question "Are we Rome?"  The jury is still out.  Our Founders warned us that all republics have eventually fallen into tyranny -- the only difference being the relative timeline of each republic's descent.  There are signals today: governments practice confiscatory taxation to fund bread and circuses; governments grant increasing power to unelected functionaries and to elected executives.  A president has even taken to the very Roman practice of establishing a personality cult, with his image on everything from posters to t-shirts.

But at least America has always respected the rule of the written law.  From the summer of 1787 when our Framers deliberated over their magnificent Constitution, we have recognized that the clear statement and equal application of the Law is among the most critical duties of any government.  If we allow ourselves to lose this, we may as well be back in ancient Rome, subject to the whim of every petty tyrant in the taxing bureau or the zoning board. 

For it doesn't matter whether the regulator's foot is shod in a jack boot or a Roman sandal; if he can hold you down with that boot upon your neck, then we are no longer in the America that our Founding Fathers intended for us.

Copyright 2011 John F. Di Leo

(cross-posted from the American Thinker) 

John F. Di Leo is a Chicago-based Customs broker and international trade compliance trainer.  You know you've encountered a writer descended from Ancient Romans, when he writes about an even that happened 25 centuries ago, and he files it under "Current Affairs."

Permission is hereby granted to forward freely, provided it is uncut, and the byline and URL are included.  Follow me on LinkedIn or Facebook!

First off, a number of companies simply stopped offering “child-only” policies, especially for ailing kids with pre-existing conditions. That’s because one of the great benefits of the new law that just went into effect would make it mandatory for companies to insure those kids.

Fortunately, according to the New York Times, the market for child-only policies is relatively small and kids can be covered by their family policies—either through employers or private payments. The kids can also be covered by public programs such as Medicaid, where available, and by the new high-risk pools. But it clearly shows you where the hearts of those insurers lie—and how they lie about other things as well.

It’s highly appropriate that the sequel to “Wall Street” just hit the big screens. This is where Gordon “Greed is Good” Gekko is sprung from jail and finds himself among the new breed of Wall Streeters whose excesses are about to bring down the world economy. (All this is left-wing Hollywood fantasy, of course. How could a bunch of greedy Wall Streeters and their fellow insurance Gekkos such as AIG wreak such devastation?)

Cutting out policies for sick kids, however, is not the only damage the industry is doing. Wherever possible and to the greatest extent possible, the companies are raising premium rates excessively and trying to blame it on health-care reform.

In California, for example, Anthem-Blue Cross managed to get an average 14 percent increase in premiums past the state’s regulators—a raise that will hit up to 20 percent for some policy holders. Anthem is the state’s largest private for-profit insurance company. If the name sounds familiar, it’s the same one that tried to get a 39 percent boost earlier this year when reform was being debated. In Connecticut the same company just got an average premium increase of 22.9 percent, again blaming it on “Obamacare.”

It’s not just the greedy, highly political Anthem Company pumping up rates—numerous others across the land have received or are seeking similarly inordinate increases. Obviously some limited increases may initially be necessary because one of the act’s fine provisions lifts lifetime limits on how much a patient can receive for care, but what they are asking and getting is ridiculous. .

The Gekkoism metastasizing throughout the health insurance industry caused Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sibelius to write their national association, America’s Health insurance Plans (AHIP), admonishing its members to stop using lies and “scare tactics” by blaming huge rate increases on the Affordable Care Act.

Since the association and its membership originally supported the key provisions that kicked in on Sept. 23, Sibelius made the point that any increases in costs to the insurance companies will be minimal. Citing analyses by her department, others in the insurance industry and various academicians, she wrote:

“We estimate that the effect will be no more than one to two percent. This is consistent with estimates from the Urban Institute (1 to 2 percent) and Mercer Consultants (2.3 percent) as well as some insurers estimates.” She also noted that upward trends in health-care costs “independent of the legislation” have slowed.

So what’s going on here aside from pure greed?

Politics as usual, to coin a phrase. The Republicans are running on a vow to repeal health care. A phony pledge because even in their wildest dreams of taking back both houses, they know they can never win the overwhelming majorities needed to over-ride a presidential veto.

The insurance companies understand that, but would clearly like to see the GOP win this year in order to begin weakening the act at its edges, so they’re happy to play along by inflating their rates beyond reason and falsely blaming “Obamacare” and the Democrats.

This may, however, be a political miscalculation on the part of both the insurers and the GOP. All the evidence suggests the health act is gaining in popularity and acceptance as its benefits begin to be felt and better understood. Only a third of Americans want to see it repealed.

It might turn out that by making repeal the big issue, the Republicans might not wind up winning either house—providing the Democrats play it right. But that’s always iffy.

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Don Rose is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer

As president of the Catholic Health Association (CHA), the largest group of not-for-profit health care facilities in the country, Sister Carol, as she’s called, delivered an 11th-hour endorsement of President Obama’s health care reform bill. Herseal of approval appeared to give the legislation a Catholic blessing. It even earned Sister Carol one of the 21 pens the president used to sign the bill into law.

However, the CHA’s endorsement contradicted the position of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a group whose commitment to health care reform is decades old. The bishops exercise oversight on Catholic moral teaching that transcends the legislative policy provisions over which politicians squabble.

So whom to believe? Which group represents authentic Catholic opinion?

Read more at the Washington Times

Certainly none of the politicians, health care providers, labor unions and special interests that in 2005 so enthusiastically bought into then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s All Kids program. Certainly not tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, the major beneficiaries of the program. From Citizen Action/Illinois to the Illinois Hospital Association, from the Chicago Teachers Union to the Peruvian Cultural Center, they all hailed it as some kind of nirvana.

They were wrong. Now, five years later, All Kids has turned into just another government botch of a program that has failed to meet expectations. Except for its costs. Those, of course, wildly exceeded expectations. And helped state finances circle the drain.

At least that’s one way to view a recent, but insufficiently noticed, audit of All Kids by Illinois Auditor General William G. Holland. Compare the reality with what was promised when Blagojevich signed the law.

Read more from Dennis Byrne

Understand that Dr. Eric Whitaker, one of President Obama’s best friends, was not subpoenaed. Just his emails and medical records from the Illinois of Public Health which he ran under Rod Blagojevich. The pro-Squid, pro-Obama Capitol Fax objects to the headline by the Sun-Times: One of Obama’s Closest Friends Part of Federal Probe. Not that the headline says they were subpoenaed but it’s too vague. Again: Whitaker wasn’t subpoenaed but his papers were.

And, tsks-tsks Capitol Fax it takes to the 7th paragraph for the paper to say that neither Whitaker or his former chief of staff Quin Golden were subpoenaed.

Perhaps the best way to write the story to win approval of the Obama-idolizing Capitol Fax…while undeniably supplying the best coverage of Springfield extant…would be this:

WHITAKER AND GOLDEN NOT SUBPOENAED.
By Dave McKinney, Chris Fusco and Tim Novak Staff Reporters.

President Obama’s friend Dr. Eric Whitaker was not subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

However their papers and emails are being looked at—which very well may mean nothing at all: a routine procedure. However, they…Dr Whitaker and Golden…are not under subpoena.

It is clear that the Department of Public Health’s “faith-based initiatives” and health awareness campaigns were designed to assist African-American and other minorities obtain better health care were all functioning well when Dr. Whitaker and Golden left state employment. While they are mentioned in a subpoena which asks for their papers and e-mails, it is important to stress that they…Dr. Whitaker and Golden…are not the target of a subpoena themselves. So as the reader digests this news, it is important to recognize that they are not…repeat not…under subpoena.

Touchy-Touchy Capitol Fax Part II.

Capitol Fax is very much interested in passage of State Rep. Lou Lang’s medical marijuana bill. So it criticized a statement opposing it made by the lobbyist for the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police. The lobbyist said one thing that cannot be contradicted:

“There’s a lot of stuff in marijuana that’s not good for you.”

But then he made an overstatement: “It’s like people taking meth. People feel a lot better ingesting methamphetamine.”

To which Capitol Fax expostulates with its favorite idiom: “Sheesh!” Sheesh! Is a term of exasperation that kids…and adults who don’t want to grow up…use—most usually seen as a variation of the word “Jesus!”

What Capitol Fax doesn’t report, however, is that the National Institute on Drug Abuse says marijuana smoke contains from 50 to 70% more harmful chemicals than does cigarette smoke and that long-term marijuana users may suffer from severe respiratory ailments. Nor that marijuana addiction is linked with anxiety. Among young people the medical marijuana bill is seen as one step to general laxity and acceptance of the smoke. Anyone protesting it is likely to be greeted by the in-crowd with “Sheesh!” meaning decidedly un-cool. Once again: the pop culture argues that medical marijuana is a good and that any square who opposes it is…well…sheesh!

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Tom Roeser is the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Chicago Daily Observer

image Sheesh Kebab machine

Ironically, the very same band of nitwits in public life who hate smoking, fat kids, fois gras and American History crafted the Obama Care Legislation and stand poised to make America go the way of Greece, Ireland and Portugal once the Obama Care Federal Deficit Reduction Commission driven by SEIU’s Andy Stern force feed a Value Added Tax (VAT) down our throats in order to rake in the dough to pay for Obama Care.

In Order to smooth the strokes and grease the tube, America’s corporate media ( ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN & etc.) have been going flat out since last weekend to pattern the landscape of debate with fear – race and cultural wars. Abortion and Civil Rights are the hot buttons pushed. Over the weekend, when the opposition to Obama Care continued its slumber begun with Scott Brown’s victory, the Progressive genius for guerilla theatre laid the trap and Tea Party, Pro-Life Democrats and the always daffy national GOP napped while the trap was sprung.

Racial and homophobic epithets were heard, by the people who made the claims but by no one else, it seems. The media is there to One Note Samba the theme, like wee Ezra Klein of the Washington Post ,” I don’t want to exaggerate the importance of the death threats being made against congressmen who voted for health-care reform. Nuts are nuts. But there is a danger to the sort of rhetoric the GOP has used over the past few months.” But “I will and gladly!”

We hear Joe Biden gaffe away 24-7; we see G.W. Bush lay a hand on Bill Clinton’s sleeve in Haiti; cell phones in Chicago pick up a Chicago cop’s N-word and yet no one can replay the wild shouts of race-hate, homophobia, abortion anger, the heart break of psoriasis and Vulcan Mind Melding by Chris Matthews.

Since Obama Care was pushed through, I have heard no real celebration by the media cheerleaders. Odd. I hear only endless reactions to Jim Clyburn’s chilling account of what he heard that John Lewis said he heard and Rep. Cleaver’s dignity spat upon by some phantom spitter.

No arrests, no sound bytes, You Tube replays, and no cell phone journalism has yet to appear; only Ann Curry, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow blaring parsed warnings about impending violence and warm rhetoric.

Obama Care forces played the slumbering opposition like a Stradivarius.

Nancy Pelosi linked arms with Congressman Lewis and evoked Selma! Obama Care is a Civil Right!

Here’s the deal. Obama Care is bad. President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Harry Reid, Jan Schakowsky and all of the Obama Care Selma Signifiers exempted themselves in the legislation from taking Obama Care for themselves. President Obama made sure that none of the toxic taxes squirt all over the taxpayers until after the 2012 Election. Democrats and Republicans and Tea Party People and even some former Obama supporters are angry about Obama Care. Catholics are disgusted by Judas Goat Bart Stupak, who was staked out to help the daffy GOP Sominex “Obama Care is Dead” leadership and Pro-Life Democratic voters ( Catholics, Jews, Evangelicals & etc.), and got himself an airport.
The only Illinois Democrat with any integrity is my congressman Dan Lipinski (IL 3rd) who is taking heat from every quarter but the voters of his District.

Meanwhile, our oafish Congresswoman and media hog Jan Schakowsky is moving to stab vulnerable U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias in the back, force him out of the race that she will lose with aplomb to Republican sneak Mark Kirk. It’s all about Obama Care, right Jan? Sure we are angry. We are not tossing bricks or hurling hockers. We are waiting to vote.

The corporate media stands to make millions with Obama Care and the idiotic Cap and Trade Bill. The only anger being ginned up is being done on TV and in the pages of the usual suspects ( New York Times, Chicago Sun Times, Washington Post and their little sisters), because no President, since JFK, has enjoyed greater sympathy or synergy with the corporate media than President Obama.

President Obama is handled by media savvy Dave Axelrod – the Intolerable Ax! Ax is journalist muy simpatico to the old timey 60’s radicals of the American Progressive Movement which owns the DNC and is pals with PR Maven Marilyn Katz* who is a past master of political guerrilla theatre. It seems to me that the DNC through Dave Axelrod availed itself of these fine practitioners of wildly exaggerated narratives (‘Tea Partiers are wearing guns to town halls!!!! Think! People, our President is in Danger of these white hillbillies!’ and ‘N$%%^er and Fa$%tt were heard!!!!! Link Arms! We Shall Overcome! Get Pete Seeger! Make Patches Kennedy cry about dear old Dad!”). Hey, this was slick and well managed public relations. The GOP dopes walk right into the moral high ground buzz-saw and get torn up. John McCain got bitch-slapped by Ann Curry only this morning. Ann Curry repeatedly hammered the smiling Straight Talker with idiotic self-answering questions about GOP hate rhetoric. Good lord.

If you are serious about fighting Obama Care and what is going to follow, the opposition (Democrat Pro-Life, GOP, Tea Party or Bull Moose) must not only shout Repeal, but also Embargo. Harry Truman had no problem telling an unctuous phony reporter what to pack for a trip to Hell. McCain wants to make nice with the clowns who micturated all over his wingtips since 2007.

If an idiot like NBC’s Ann Curry can ask stupid questions like “ Sarah Palin uses Battleground and Fight Rhetoric –is that not Fear Mongering? – you must say that! Must you Not?” call her question Idiotic! Stupid! Dumb as Hammered Horse Manure! Treat them with the contempt that they show you . . .in a nice and civilized and nuanced manner, of course.

Talk only to serious journalists and have nothing to do with the Gotcha Goofballs. Why any intelligent elected official would spend a nano second talking to any one MSNBC is beyond me. The best of them are half-wits.

I suspect that we (F.B.I. included) will never find the brick hurlers ( Rep. Slaughter- D. NY) or the hocker hurlers (Rep. Cleaver -D. MO) or the epithet hurlers (Lewis and Frank). We will never actually hear a sound byte of Pro-Life Hate or homophobia or race-baiting. Though we can pick up Joe Biden’s Gaffes-a-Plenty and make a case for G.W. Bush passing cooties on Clinton, we will understand GOP Ownership of Hate via Chris Matthews – who could not tell you the color of the tie he is wearing.

Public Relations won the Obama Care battle and are fighting this Pyrrhic Victory’s rear-guard actions with the complicity of corporate media. Dave Axelrod and the City of Chicago has long used Marilyn Katz, who began her career filling bags of poop and pee behind the Conrad Hilton in 1968 – as well as crafting nail bombs to hurl at Chicago Police. She is good. I would bet that Dave Axelrod tapped Marilyn Katz and MK Communications to control the Obama Care Narrative – it is what they do.

The anger is not mongered. It is all too real.

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Pat Hickey is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer

Read more at Big Government

Haiti is in horrible condition, and has been the recipient of US Aid (and intervention) for over 100 years, and is in pretty much the same condition that it was 100 years ago. However, per the IMF, the average per capita income in Chile is $14,300, which is striking for a country that was in poverty only a generation ago. Free trade, high individual savings, and a strong work ethic pulled Chile into being a 1st world economy, thriving before and after the authoritarian Pinochet regime left power. So why would we want to provide long term aid to Chile? Why not just buy and sell goods, (among many other riches, Chile has some fine wine and huge copper reserves) rather than providing long term aid?

It is the mindset that has made for an indefensible position for (purported) Catholic Social Teachings. People are by and large completely capable of taking care of themselves in normal circumstances. In ambulatory circumstances, such as an earthquake, ambulatory response like sending aid is completely justified, and then it must stop. Many of our Church leaders have shown support for long term government support of charitable institutions (Catholic Charities comes to mind) that are now dependent upon government support and the incessant political games of lobbying and pleading for funds.

The Catholic Bishops took a consistent and courageous stand in opposing abortion funding in the recent healthcare bill, and deserve the backing of the faithful for their leadership. But a pause for reflection is also needed to consider how we got in such a fix that we are relying on the Federal Government to provide such a range of services to people that we have detached the personal and spiritual relationship of charitable support of healthcare.

It wasn’t that long ago that organizations such as the Sisters of Mercy (1846) and the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth (1895) came to Chicago to care for the sick. Along the last 100 years or so, the Sister’s built up huge organizations and facilities that resembled multinational corporations more than Convent sickrooms. Of course, the growth was necessary as the population increased and medical technology changed. But when the Catholic Health Association openly supports abortion coverage in the Federal Health Care Bill, it is clear that something has gone heinously wrong with the prudential judgement of the Sisters.

Edward Hospital in Naperville became famous for standing up to the Illinois Health Facilities planning board and refusing to pay Tony Rezko for permission to build a health facility in Plainfield. The new hospital would compete with existing, nominally Catholic, hospitals in the Plainfield area, and was rejected by the planning board, with felonious complicity via Tony Rezko, Stuart Levine and charges against Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Five years later, Edward still wasn’t able to build the hospital, depriving a growing area of vital health services.

You can repeat this type of thoroughly corrupt influence of Illinois State Government at any number of health facilities, from the innovative Proton Therapy unit in DeKalb to the minute clinics that do not exist in the missing Wal-Marts on the South Side.

Any fair minded person should ask, is more government really what is needed to provide better health care? Is the corrupting influence of politics too great to justify further government influence in business? Should religious people be standing up against the basic impediments to providing goods and services rather than clamoring for more government funding?

The Catholic health systems have quite a bit to manage that is directly under their own control. A recent ruling in the Illinois Supreme Court found that a Catholic hospital in Urbana does not provide a sufficient level of charitable care to be eligible for a property tax exemption, while the Loyola Health Care system in Chicago advertises that it provides it’s Ob/Gyn Residents with “the opportunity to perform interval surgical sterilization procedures, as well as first and second trimester terminations of pregnancy”. It has to be tough enough to find some spiritual reason for a Catholic hospital to continue being Catholic even without a new set of extraordinary pressures.

The support of a Federal Mandate for healthcare (sans abortion) was a prudential call by the Bishops, and is certainly defensible within the catechism. That is no excuse for ignoring the years of abuse within the current level of government provided healthcare and the massive problems with the healthcare bill. Giving up on your own common sense to hand over power to a small group of bought-and-paid-for politicians does not strike me as particularly prudent. Prudential judgement does not mean forcing others to pay for your speculative opinions. The roads to both heaven and hell is paved with good intentions. The hard part is seeing the end result despite the composition of the pavement.

Cornell is the first Ivy League team to reach the Sweet 16 since 1979. Kansas, the number one seed in the tournament is out. And, lower-seeded teams won 16 games during the first two rounds (33%).

On the political front, despite an overwhelming majority of Americans being against it, the Democrats passed a sweeping overhaul of the health care system. This occurred despite the clear message of the election of Scott Brown to the US Senate in Massachusetts, the equivalent of a 16-seed beating a 1-seed.

But just because your bracket is destroyed, the NCAA tournament is still awfully fun to watch. And just because health care passed, there are still profits to be made in the stock market. Bottom-line: the health care bill by itself is no reason to run for the hills. In the short term, there are no policy changes that will derail or noticeably slow the V-shaped economic recovery currently underway.

To be sure, there are harmful policy shifts, including extra fees on health insurers and the makers of medical devices. These will raise the cost of health care and stifle innovation in that arena. But this is a sector issue, not a macroeconomic one – at least in the short-term.

In addition, new insurance regulations that kick-in later this year will boost premiums, as insurance companies are forced to transfer resources from the healthy to the sick. This is a costly policy, but not one that will affect the overall drivers of the economy, which are the incentives to work or invest.

The biggest macroeconomic impact will be from tax hikes, but these do not take effect until 2013, at the earliest. First, the law enacted yesterday raises the Medicare payroll tax on high-income workers by 0.5%. This will reduce growth, but the impact is small when compared to the 1993 tax hike (which added 11.5% to the top marginal tax rate) or the scheduled lapse of the Bush tax cuts (which will add 4.6% starting in January).

Second, the new law imposes a tax on so-called “Cadillac” health plans. The key point to remember about this tax is that it will not affect marginal tax rates. Workers who already have high-cost health insurance will pay more in taxes, but not on marginal income gains. Workers who do not have Cadillac plans can receive higher cash pay, not more insurance, and avoid the tax.

The third change, the one with the biggest negative impact on the economy, occurs because of a new subsidy. A middle-class family of four making $30,000 will pay no more than $900 for health insurance. The same family, at $88,000 of income, will pay no more than $8,360. So if the family earns $58,000 in extra income, its subsidy is reduced by $7,460, which translates into a new implicit tax rate of 13%.

A much bigger worry is the other bill passed late Sunday night by the House (but not yet the Senate) which would raise tax rates on dividends, capital gains, and interest by 4%. However, like the other tax hikes, this one would not hit until 2013. Remember, anything that happens that far out is still questionable.

By 2013, the American people will have had two major opportunities, in November 2010 and November 2012, to either ratify or substantially rework the law. Massive adjustments in the bill are still possible. If those adjustments do not occur, if the bill remains law and tax hikes go through, the economy will pay a price in higher unemployment, slower growth, and higher inflation. But until these next two election cycles occur, we do not truly know the impact of yesterday’s vote.

In the short-term we have not changed our bullish stance, we still expect the Dow to reach 13,000 by year end. The economy is in recovery mode and this bill does little in the short-term to have an impact. Get ready for a great finish to the NCAA basketball tournament and continued gains in economic activity.

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Brian Wesbury is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer.  Read more from Brian at FT Portfolios